Nineteen Months Later
by pagethreeninetyfour
Summary: A series of vignettes describing certain characters nineteen months after the final battle.
1. Hermione

She blows the smoke out from between a set of even teeth.

Her parents would have killed her for such an activity, one that will ruin years of careful care and discipline, but they're miles away with no memory of dentistry or daughters.

Her fingertips trace the cicatrices on the inside of her arm as she takes another drag.


	2. Ron

He can feel the sweat beading on his brow, dampening his auburn hair, trickling down his freckled back. His eyes narrow in focus as he spies his enemy from his hiding place. He can feel his pulse racing in his neck, pounding in his ears, throbbing down to his tight grip on the stick in his hand. The physical response is invigorating.

He is no longer surprised by the absence of emotion.


	3. Ginny

She is part mother, part lover, part stranger.

She holds him tightly during the nights when nightmares keep him muttering in his sleep. His scar never throbs painfully to awaken him.

She kisses him fiercely when he comes home from dirty and exhausted from another grueling mission, delighted and relieved to find him unharmed though never quite whole.

She withdraws softly when small words, certain gestures, steal him from her and deaden his eyes.

It is hard for her to accept that there are some things about him she will never know, harder still to realize she should never ask.


	4. Harry

The guilt is strong and ceaseless, flowing through his veins as a river and crashing over him in rough waves that break when he least expects it.

He is drowning in the pain and the shame. The burden weighs heavy on his shoulders, smothering him as he struggles to surface.

No number of hands he clasps in tearful thanks, no number of heartfelt reassurances he hears, will change the fact that he visits the cemetery just a bit more often than his godson.


	5. Draco

Justice comes swiftly to the manor, carrying away his father but leaving him miraculously reprieved. His testimony against men he once idolized is the exchange for his freedom.

Their paths cross at more than one painful trial, but his grey eyes can't seem to meet the green.

The unspoken culpa settles in his chest and the former spoiled prince settles into ignominy.


	6. Luna

The vivid colors of the Amazonian jungle aren't far enough away from the grey fog of Britain at first.

One week in, on a field exposition, a Venomous Tentacula brushes ever so softly and unexpectedly against the back of her neck. She is on the ground in an instant, her mind one year and 5000 miles away in a damp, lightless cellar in England.

The whisper of the Cruciatus in her ear haunts her sleep for weeks.


	7. Andromeda

It's 2:03 PM when she realizes just how much she'll miss them.

Her kitchen has never been a lonely place, nor ever quite so clean, but there is no more husband to cook for or clumsy daughter to clean up after.

She sips her tea alone in the too-quiet afternoon and cries with the baby when he wakes.

* * *

**Author's Note: **andromeda, in case that wasn't clear. she's a bit of a more obscure character.

please let me know what you think so far, this is my first published fic! if there is a decent response i'll upload some more :)


	8. Neville

When the last pane of glass has been mended and the final plant restored to its rightful pot, she surprises him with the keys to the greenhouse. They're his now, she tells him through both their tears, he's earned them in the weeks and months he spent laboring patiently to repair what the battle destroyed. It's the happiest he's been in years, and he thinks it might be the happiest he'll ever be until he comes home to Hannah with a surprise of her own.


	9. Molly

She refuses to grieve at first, convinced that allowing herself the extent of this pain will shatter her.

The first time she sets one too many places at the table, there is only uncomfortable and loaded silence, punctuated by awkward and ill-hidden sniffling.

When she accidentally knits his Christmas sweater that year, she presses it on Kreacher surreptitiously, hastily wiping away secret, shameful tears.

She braves many months of forgotten trick wands and painful half-finished jokes, each an aching reminder that tears at the jagged hole in her heart.

But 20 years of habit is hard to break, and when she calls the wrong name for the umpteenth time, she breaks down on the worn kitchen floor, begging whoever's listening for her baby boy back.


End file.
